A principal organ of the Organization, the Trusteeship Council was active from 1947- 1994. Because the organ no longer meets regularly, current staff and researchers are often unfamiliar with the working methods of the Council and the pattern of documentation. The guide aims to help people research this fascinating chapter of the UN’s history through identifying key documents and providing guidance on the types of documents produced during the course of its work.

In addition to an overview of the work of the Trusteeship Council, the guide has a page dedicated to each of the 11 trust territories.

With the publication of this guide, the Library now has a guide for each of the principal organs.

The Decolonization guide complements the Trusteeship guide and provides an overview of the documentation patterns of some of the key parliamentary bodies related to this topic, including the Fourth Committee and the Special Committee on Decolonization. The Special Committee considers matters related to all non-self-governing territories except the trust territories and the pattern of documentation is similar to that of the Trusteeship Council.

The Decolonization guide lists key General Assembly resolutions on the topic and links to some of the recurrent reports of the Secretary-General. The guide is offered as a starting point for researchers and focuses on UN documentation.

Browse almost 700 FAQs and find answers about all things UN, including manyrelated to UN documentation via our Ask DAG service. If you can’t find what you are looking for, submit your question and a librarian will respond to you.